Swiss Cheese

Many--particularly those who think that our money belongs to the government--are gleeful that the Swiss Parliament appears poised to remove the secrecy long associated with Swiss bank accounts. The Chronicle, not surprisingly, illustrates this point:

The accounts are disappearing because tax collectors in this country and across much of Europe finally had enough of that secrecy. They were losing revenues because of the labyrinthine walls of privacy ordained and enforced by powerful Swiss bankers.

In other words, nobody has a right to hide their money from the taxman. Anyone who wishes to maintain some privacy regarding their financial affairs must have nefarious purposes:

Ah, yes, secrecy … that was always the source of the appeal of these accounts for wealthy dictators, industrialists, movie stars, Nazi thieves and others of notoriety and fame.

Ayn Rand once said something to the effect that if someone decries communists and his mother-in-law in the same breath, you can be certain that the true source of his animosity is the mother-in-law.  The paper equates dictators and industrialists, Nazis and movie stars. The paper's wrath is not directed at the thieves and murderers who used Swiss bank accounts to hide their loot, but at productive individuals who sought to hold onto the money they earned.

More importantly, the paper sees no distinction between production and brute force. It sees no difference between a banker and a bank robber. In the process it advocates theft on a scale that rivals "wealthy dictators" and "Nazi thieves".


Due to a number of commitments and projects, my posting my be irregular and shorter than normal over the next few weeks.